Buying Forgetfulness
by ILuvMamo-chan
Summary: A cross-over story from FFVII and FFVIII taking place in the Kingdom Hearts setting. Squall returns to Traverse Town after discovering that Rinoa had not returned with his world. Cloud appears to drink along with Squall and offer comfort. SquallxCloud


Hi everyone. This'll be my first post, though not my first fanfic. I do most of my stuff at , so if you're interested, my pen name there is also ILuvMamo-chan, and Tasuki313. Anyways, this is a crossover of FFVII and FFVIII, though it more or less takes place in the Kingdom Hearts universe. That seemed the most logical way to get Cloud and Squall together. Yes, this is a shounen-ai CloudxSquall fic, so be forwarned. There is OOC, but they're drunk, so it's to be expected. Enjoy!  
  
Story: Buying Forgetfulness  
  
Author: ILuvMamo-chan  
  
Rating: PG-13, Shounen-ai  
  
Disclaimer: Don't own FFVII or FFVIII, but I do plan on owning Squall one day, if you know what I mean. (evil laugh)  
  
Email:   
  
He hadn't planned on returning. Once the key blade master had sealed the door to darkness, he was sure his world would be restored and he could go home. Traverse Town and all that had come with it were supposed to be some distant memory that he could look back on and wish never to go back to. But the mild happy life that he was supposed to be experiencing now was gone. All his hopes and aspirations drifted away the minute he returned home only to learn that his main source of happiness wasn't there.   
  
Rinoa Heartily had not returned with the world.  
  
His heart had been smashed when he learned that. The heart that he had tried so hard to forget until she arrived was destroyed once she left again. Being in that world without her was pointless, and more painful than he could ever imagine. It hurt to be in a place so full of her memories. So full of his memories with her.   
  
He damned it all. At least in Traverse Town he had the house Aerith, Yuffie and himself had rented. In that place there would be no haunting figures lurking in every shadow to remind him of a good thing that would never be his. In Traverse Town he had basically relied on himself; he became too depedent in his world. He had to learn once again only depend on himself.  
  
So Squall took the coward's way out and escaped from his hurtful past. But the escape couldn't bring on forgetfullness. Nothing could do that permenantly. However, temporary forgetfulness was easy enough to buy. And that's how Squall found himself taking the familiar steps to the tavern.   
  
Squall raised his arm for another beer. After the sixth one, things seem to take on a much brighter tone. And everything began to spin rather delightfully. He was even beginning to forget why he went to the tavern in the first place, not to mention the whole reasoning for his return to Traverse Town. He decided drinking was a very good idea, and began guzzling down his seventh beer.   
  
"This seat taken?"   
  
Squall sighed at the request from an unknown person. The last thing he wanted to interupt his drunken stupor was flirting. Especially considering the voice had been distinctly male. Or at least, he thought the voice was male. The alcohol was messing with his hearing, among other things.   
  
"I'd rather be alone." Squall said in a rather slurred voice, though he sounded perfectly clear to himself.   
  
"Let me rephrase that. I'm sitting."   
  
The alcohol made Squall anger quickly, and he turned with a burning glare to the person who took the seat next to him. For a moment he opened his mouth to give an angry tirade, but the figure made him stop and reconsider. It took him much longer to recognize the blonde man next to him than normal, but finally his spinning brain registered the face. Cloud, the man that had been searching for Aerith and found her in Traverse Town, finally worked into his brain. Knowing that there was no possible way that Cloud would flirt with him,Squall decided to accept the company.  
  
"Leon. I'm surprised to see you here." Cloud said with a nod to the bartender, who left to get Cloud a beer.   
  
It took Squall a moment to understand that Cloud was addressing him. He had forgotten that in Traverse Town, his identity was Leon. Yuffie so often disobeyed that rule, and soon more people were referring to him as Squall rather than the alias. He supposed Aerith never got around to telling Cloud that Squall was his real name.   
  
"You might as well call me Squall. It's my real name, and I'm too out of it to respond to anything that I may have made up."  
  
Cloud gave a small smirk before he raised his beer to his lips. After chugging it himself, he turned to Squall again. "I thought I'd be the only one coming back to this God-forsaken place this time."   
  
"Well, life always has those unexpected surprises." His own words making him bitter, Squall finished off his beer and unceremoniously signaled for another. The bartender unwillingly set another in front of him, and in front of Cloud.   
  
"Would I be prodding if I asked you why you were here?" Cloud seemed to be in the same mood as Squall himself. He had barely asked the question before he downed another beer.   
  
It was times like this that Squall closed in on himself. Or at least, that's how it used to be. Too many things had happened to him, too many soul wrenching, life-giving things, and suddenly he felt too much. He hurt, he cared, damn it all to hell, he'd even cried once or twice! He didn't want to be weak, but he really didn't want to discuss his presence there in the first place. Not to a guy who had the love of his life waiting back in their world, when his own was long since lost to him. There was only one answer Squall could think of. "You couldn't possibly understand."  
  
"Ahh, so you're one of those types. Like to suffer quietly on your own. I understand." By this time, Squall had already downed his ninth beer, Cloud on his fourth quickly approaching his fifth. Despite the fact, it was obvious Cloud could hold his liquer much better. Of course, Cloud was also a few years older, with more drinking experience under his belt.  
  
"It's better to suffer alone than bring everyone down with you."   
  
"I see. A loner too? I'm surprised you got along with Yuffie so well."  
  
"It wasn't so much get along as she forced me to listen and play house."  
  
Cloud let out a stiff bark of laughter. "That's Yuffie all right."  
  
"She actually reminds me of someone from my world. Her name's Selphie. Her and Yuffie could practically be twins with their constant sugar high."  
  
"There's always one of those in every group. What did you do in your world?"  
  
"I was a SeeD. It's kinda complicated to understand, though some people said our main goal in training was to kill sorceresses. Though I'm not so sure about that. My...a girl I knew pretty well was actually a sorceress." Trying to cloud his thoughts of Rinoa with a guzzle of beer, Squall countered, "What about you?"  
  
"Soldier. SeeD's probably aren't much different."  
  
"Not really."  
  
"So you trained huh? Did you have military bases or something?"  
  
"There were, but all SeeD candidates are trained at Gardens. I trained at the Balamb Garden. When candidates were ready, they'd go on missions to join the SeeD's."  
  
"You're right. They aren't much different from soldiers. We're all just fighting in this screwed up world to kill and conquer even more land that doesn't belong to us."   
  
This phrase took the already inebriated Squall by surprise. He was even more surprised that his should be happy companion was quickly coming up to rival his alcohol intake. He decided to ignore said fact and drink more himself.   
  
"Well you know what they say. Life sucks, and then you die." Squall said with a slur, and finished his eleventh beer.   
  
Cloud raised his beer. "That they do man. That they do."  
  
Squall and Cloud used each other as support as they stumbled into the house Squall still paid rent for. Both totally intoxicated, Squall laughed as he sprawled across the floor, Cloud choking on his own laughter as he fell onto the bed. Alcohol had obviously did a complete turn around on both males, both far too gone to realize that they were actually letting loose and nearly giggling.  
  
"So then, they decide to torture me by zapping me with like, a billion bolts of lightening!" Squall managed to get out the ending of the story he had been telling on the way home.  
  
"Man, that's no way to treat a guest." Cloud said with a heavy tongue, drunkenly pulling himself up into an almost sitting position.  
  
"Tell me about it."  
  
"So now that we're both way too drunk to care, why are you back here?"   
  
This sobered Squall up enough. "I told you it was none of your damn business."  
  
"Oh, touchy." Cloud stammered, still trying to calm his laughing.   
  
"You don't know anything about touchy. She's dead all right? Dead dead dead and I couldn't do a thing about it!"   
  
"What the hell? Who's dead?"  
  
"Rinoa! Rinoa's dead and she ruined everything! She comes into my life, making me care and have all those fing emotions that nobody needs! She made me feel again, and now she's dead, and now I have to feel all this damn hurt because she was taken away from me! I don't want to care, but I can't help it!"   
  
Squall stumbled his way over to Cloud, who hadn't moved in inch since Squall's outburst. Squall did his best to grab Cloud shirt-front, but his attempt was weak and his grip was loose. "So how's Aerith huh?"  
  
"She's dead." The simmered down Cloud had no expression in his voice. His eyes didn't tell any different.   
  
"Wah?"  
  
"She was killed. A man named Sephiroth killed her."   
  
Squall felt the already short amount of air knocked out of him. "Man that sucks."   
  
They took one look at each other, they're already hazy minds even more jumbled, and laughed. Not amused laughs, not even drunken laughs. It was more they were both on the edge of sanity.  
  
"So we're both just morners stuck in a damn world because we have no where we want to go back to?"   
  
"I think Yuffie would say in a time like this, 'Like, what a totally horrible experience!' Or something like that." Cloud attempted to stand and fell on the floor next to Squall. "The most terrible part is, I had to sit there and watch her sink to the bottom of some pond, or lake, whatever, knowing I couldn't save her."   
  
"Well, here I was under the impression that if Sora restored the worlds Rinoa would be there too. Wasn't it just splendidly ironic that she was the only one that didn't come back?"   
  
They were silent for a while. Squall turned to Cloud. "Would you be offended if I told you I'm wasted?"   
  
"Hell, I'm not?"   
  
They laughed again, not totally unhappy at their current drunken state. In fact, the total change of character and temporary lack of concern for what had recently happened to them was pretty welcome.   
  
Squall slid himself closer to Cloud. "Hey, Cloud."   
  
Cloud didn't answer. Without thinking, Cloud pulled Squall closer by his arm and placed a slow kiss to Squall's lips.   
  
Squall didn't pull away, but when the kiss ended, he said calmly, "What'd ya do that for?"   
  
"It seemed like a good idea at the time."  
  
Without really knowing what they were getting in to, Squall resumed what they had only been doing seconds before, neither one considering that maybe the whole situation wasn't just the alcohol.   
  
Squall awoke with the absolute worst hang over he had ever experienced. With a shake of his head, he tried to remember just what had happened after he left the tavern the night before. When a cool breeze suddenly hit him, he looked down to realize that he wasn't wearing much. Lifting his sheet, he suddenly realized he wasn't wearing anything at all. As he looked to his side, the night came back with painful clarity.   
  
As he got up quickly, trying his best not to wake the sleeping Cloud, he tried to convince himself that what he did was just a drunken action that would never have happened if he had been thinking clearly. His mind argued that drunken sex mistakes usually should end up with him and some random woman in bed, but he tried to ignore it. They had both been drinking their dead love-life away, dead in more ways than one. They had just been two people in nearly the exact same position, and found comfort in liquer and companionship from an understanding ear. Dragging on his clothes, he once again pushed out of his mind that companionship didn't also come in the form of sex with someone of the same gender.   
  
As Squall pulled his shirt over his head, he noticed that Cloud was coming to. He couldn't help but smirk as Cloud had the same experience of waking up to a headache that could make a grown man cry, and then realize that he was naked and knew the exact reason why. As Cloud made a scramble to get out of bed, he seemed to notice that a nearly fully dressed Squall was standing in front of him.   
  
'So this is the morning after feeling.' Squall thought with a pang. 'What the hell am I supposed to say?'  
  
"So..."  
  
"....." Squall gave his old usual response. Silence was the way he had gotten around before, and he figured it still had some effect.   
  
"At least tell me this. Who kissed who first?" At Squall's further silence, Cloud nodded, his head hurting far worse than trying to come to terms that he had just slept with the man in front of him. "So it was me then."   
  
Knowing he couldn't possibly remedy the situation with words, Squall picked up his gun blade and made a B-line for the door. Cloud stopped him with a quick, "I don't think so."  
  
Cloud pulled on his pants before Squall's slow turn around, and he grudgingly walked back to the man's side. "I guess in this situation a, 'Let's pretend it never happened,' seems kind of cliche."  
  
"What did you want us to do?" Squall said with a clipped voice.   
  
"Did you ever consider that maybe it wasn't only the alcohol that did all the talking in our encounter last night?"   
  
"What the hell? If you're implying..."  
  
Cloud sighed and leaned back on the bed, obviously considering how to answer. "Yeah, we were drunk. And even though I wouldn't admit this on a normal basis, I'll say I was hurting because of Aerith. We both lost our girls. That reeks havoc on a guy's heart."   
  
"And?"  
  
Cloud picked his shirt up off the floor, trying to find the best words to describe what had happened. "I don't find it revolting that I slept with you."  
  
Squall stepped back, trying to decipher just what was going on. He knew he should be angry that Cloud was practically saying, 'Hell, I wanted to sleep with you!' but somehow, the anger wasn't coming. Wasn't he himself disgusted that he slept with another man? Really looking at Cloud's face, he tried to summon up the guilt and disgust he should be feeling. It wasn't coming. In his confessions to his friend the previous night, he had found someone who could truly commiserate with what he was feeling. He couldn't believe he was thinking it, but he had found a kindred spirit. And it scared him more than anything. What would Rinoa have said if she knew what he was thinking? Well, he wouldn't have been in this situation in the first place. She had said he always thought too much.   
  
"So where does that leave us?"  
  
"At an impass I guess." Cloud shifted as Squall sat next to him. "Do think you're ready to accept all the consequences last night meant?"  
  
"I don't know. After I found out about Rinoa, I didn't think I'd ever fall for another woman."  
  
"Well that makes this situation kind of convenient doesn't it?"  
  
If Squall had any sense of humor outside of being drunk, he may have laughed at that. In any case, he had no idea what to do. What was he supposed to do? Was he actually considering developing some sort of relationship with the man beside him?  
  
"This is weird for me to. I guess we just take this situation in strides. That is, if that's what you want to do. We were drunk after all."  
  
"Did it matter?"  
  
"You tell me. I already told you my theory."  
  
Squall thought for a moment, as he was prone to do. After the short silence, he decided to answer the only way he could. "Let's see where this mission takes us."   
  
"Sure."  
  
Author's note: Well, that's the end. I basically wrote most of this in one night, so I don't know if I'm completely happy with the ending. I guess I'll see by what comments I get. On the whole, I think it turned out really well. I hope everybody likes this pairing as much as I do. Or maybe I'm the only crazy SquallxCloud fan out there. I doubt it! 


End file.
